Designer Shoes and Lettuce Pieces
by haveyounomercy
Summary: Mizuki and Atobe get together to have coffee and insult each other's hair styles. Not slash, one-shot. Happy birthday to highlighters!


**A/N:** Happy birthday Yuuki/highlighters, I hope you like this! I wanted to write a little gen for you and it ended up like this, but hopefully it's not too strange. My only excuse for their immaturity is their age. :'D Really though, I hope you had a wonderful birthday yesterday~!

In other news, Mizuki is fabulous and my love for him cannot be contained. This is set before the series started.

o~

Mizuki Hajime prides himself on being fashionable, and thus it is only plausible that he should often be fashionably late. He also thinks that five minutes is a very suitable time period to make someone wait for, but apparently it is not because his cell phone is ringing for the fourth time in said five minutes and he swears that he hates Atobe Keigo.

When he steps into the café, phone still ringing in his pocket, he marches over to the first table he sees and sits down. Only then does he bother to turn around and look for Atobe, locating the boy sitting a few tables to his right. Atobe raises an eyebrow and hangs up his phone. Mizuki stays planted in his seat.

They stare at each other before Mizuki breaks into a smirk, leaning back in his chair and twirling a lock of hair around his finger. The ambient mood of coffee and lazy waitresses do nothing to lessen the sharpness of Atobe's 'What-Are-You-Doing' glare.

Atobe, meanwhile, picks up his coffee and takes a sip. He keeps his pinky up; even in a commoner place like this he must be sure to keep up his appearance. After setting the cup down, he flips his phone back open and calls Mizuki again.

Mizuki wonders for a few seconds whether or not to pick up. He stares right at Atobe as he gets out his cell phone, pressing the answer button. (His phone is a model he ordered online; a pale lavender gadget from a brand that is no longer in business - vintage is _so_ in this month).

"Come sit with me at my table." Ditching the pleasantries, Atobe hangs up. Mizuki is slightly offended at first, but he is stopped from calling Atobe back by the waitress that suddenly obstructs his view of the other boy.

"Can I get you anything to drink, sir?" Fixing a mega-watt smile on him, she points at the small menu already situated on the table.

Mizuki looks up at her, sighs, and waves his hand. "I'm not really thirsty, so I'll just take some water. And I suppose I'll have moved to the table where that disgustingly strong cologne is radiating from by then, so please remember to bring it there instead." Taking a glance at her, he frowns. "Are you sure you don't need to write this down? My order is very important, you know. I'll also take a wedge of lemon in my water, oh but put it in a separate plate because I just _know_ that you're going to squeeze too much in. Thank you."

The look she gives him tells Mizuki that he shouldn't drink the water later; she's definitely going to spit in it. Turning on her heel, the waitress leaves and Mizuki gets up from his chair, sauntering over to Atobe's table. The café is surprisingly empty for an early afternoon; although with that service, it's no wonder.

When he finally sits down, Mizuki crosses his arms over his chest and tells Atobe very plainly, "You are like a tiny piece of lettuce stuck between my teeth that I cannot get out."

Atobe only rolls his eyes. "Charming. Now do you know that including that ridiculous display of childishness you just finished, you have made me wait an entire seven minutes?"

There is a pause in which Mizuki rearranges the fake flowers on the side of their table. After he's done, he leans back in his chair and sighs. "May I just remind you that _you_ called me yesterday at eight in the evening to get me to sacrifice _my_ Sunday afternoon with you? With such short notice, I would've expected something urgent. But no, after learning we were only going to a café, I had to take my time preparing myself." He smirked, "After all, a date with Atobe Keigo is quite something, is it not?"

"This is not a date," Atobe snorts, "It is merely a conversation between two tennis players in a semi-decent café."

Mizuki scoffs. "Semi-decent?"

"It is not my fault that you live in a tasteless neighbourhood," Atobe takes another sip of his coffee. "I picked this one based on the proximity to your little school."

St. Rudolph's, of course, is by no means a _little school_. Compared to Hyoutei, though, it's barely a bug on the sidewalk. Mizuki decides not to say anything in return.

"Although I do suppose that it's time to tell you the reason for calling you out here," Atobe sighs as if his entire life is too difficult to bear. Mizuki uses this time to swear at him silently. "You see, I want to plan a practice match between the two of our teams."

Mizuki opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. Finally, he manages a: "Excuse me?"

Atobe nods in a way that makes Mizuki want to stab him. "I know, it's hard to believe that we would even consider you guys as competition. However, Jirou wants to meet the little Fuji brother."

"Yuuta won't appreciate that nickname," Mizuki says almost immediately, for lack of anything better to say. "And I was merely surprised because I didn't know Hyoutei boys knew how to ask for help."

Atobe smirks in an amused fashion, "And what makes you think I'm asking you for help?"

Mizuki keeps playing with his hair breezily. "You're just trying to find an excuse to get that player of yours to wake up and actually play tennis, aren't you? Obviously, the regular methods don't work anymore, and thus you came to _my_ team for help."

"_Your_ team?" Atobe laughs, "I don't remember you being the captain."

"Then why did you call me up to arrange this?" Eyes challenging, Mizuki leans forward to tilt his head toward the young Atobe heir.

Taking it in stride, Atobe smiles icily back. "Because your captain is just a pawn under you." He wrinkles his nose. "And he has bad skin."

Mizuki rolls his eyes. "It's generic." Leaning in even closer, he makes a face, "And probably contagious. I suggest you stay away from him during the practice match."

"Thank you for the advice." Plagued with the thought of bad skin, Atobe shivers. "I take it by your last comment that you agree to the match, then?"

"On one condition," Mizuki smiles.

Atobe raises an eyebrow, suddenly aware of how close they are to each other.

Mizuki chuckles at his sudden realization. "Oh, don't be afraid; I don't bite. But there _has_ been something I've been craving for, recently…"

The amount of time Atobe leans as far back as he can from Mizuki can be counted in nanoseconds.

This, of course, sends Mizuki into a spiral of laughter. His water arrives, the waitress frowning at the both of them, and Mizuki pushes the glass away from him as soon as she turns her back. He smirks at Atobe, who suddenly feels very irritated. "I'm so terribly sorry, Atobe-kun. My deepest apologies for… alarming you."

"Yes, well." Atobe touches his hair to make sure it's still perfect. It is. "I'd love to stay and be the butt of more of your sadistic tendencies, but I've already got enough headaches on my team to deal with."

"You can trade them for the dorks on my team, if you'd like." Mizuki teases. "Especially that sadist Oshitari-kun. Quite a bundle of talent, I'd say."

Atobe tries not to snort again; it's an inelegant habit that he can't afford to keep. "I don't need any ducks on my team, thank you. And I am far better than Oshitari if you're talking about talent."

"Then you can come to my team too." Mizuki smirks. "God knows you could use some real training."

There is a certain limit to joking with tennis players, and Mizuki Hajime had just broke past it.

At a loss for what to say to combat the previous comment, Atobe inspects Mizuki for something to criticize. "Your shirt is horrendous," he decides after a while.

Mizuki looks down at his sky blue woolly sweater with purple lions sewn onto it. It is vintage and chic and _definitely not horrendous_. He glares. Really, when he had walked into the café, he had decided not to remark on Atobe's pants, but now he can't contain himself. "Do not lecture me on fashion when you are obviously wearing last year's Ralph Lauren."

"Ralph Lauren is timeless," Atobe interjects quickly, "And your hair looks like a bird's nest."

Mizuki gasps. "Yes well, your hair colour is dull!"

Atobe stands up quickly, glaring down at Mizuki with eyes that could form daggers. "Say that again," he orders.

"Say what?" Mizuki asks in a quieter voice than he originally planned to use.

"My hair. What did you say about it?"

Fidgeting, Mizuki realizes belatedly that Atobe will probably use this moment to determine whether or not to crush Mizuki's family bank account. Perhaps it would be smarter to backpedal a bit. Nevertheless, he stands up and puts on another of his trademark smirks. "I said it was beautiful, Atobe-kun."

Happy that he's won but still disappointed at the lack of a fight, Atobe smiles back with his lips only. His eyes are still burning with contempt and Mizuki is almost sure that if he keeps eye contact for too long then he'll turn into stone. Now that he thinks about it, he can probably make a whole list of attributes that both Medusa and Atobe share.

Including yet another hair joke that Mizuki is inclined not to share for the sake of his family.

"So it's settled then," Atobe remarks, still standing. "We're having a practice session."

Mizuki hums, eager to sit back down but at the same time unwilling to sit before Atobe does. "I'll call you to arrange a time and date then?"

Atobe laughs. "No, I'll call you." And with that, he smirks and starts walking away from their table. His hand raised in the air, he doesn't even bother to look back as he calls out, "And don't worry about the bill. I have it covered, common peasant."

"I loathe you and your designer shoes," Mizuki says as a limo pulls up to the café. "For real. Unless you give me a pair, and then maybe I would like you more."

Atobe turns back to give Mizuki a skeptic look, during which Mizuki uses the chance to flip him off. Atobe huffs, mutters something about beating St. Rudolph into the ground, and leaves with the kind of elegance one naturally expects of a big corporation heir.

As Mizuki sits back down, he contemplates team match ups and training schedules. Then he calls up the rest of the St. Rudolph members - hey, Atobe's paying for everything, might as well make use of it - and tells them all to come to the café. He gestures to the annoyed waitress, twirls his hair, and thinks about Atobe's designer shoes.

Perhaps they could be friends.

Or perhaps Mizuki could get a root canal and never see the man again. His phone rings; it's Atobe.

Mizuki fishes the phone out of his pocket with a sigh. There is, quite possibly, no pair of shoes in the world that would be worth putting up with Atobe Keigo for.

But if there were, then said man would have them. With that mindset, he answers the phone with: "You are really annoying and should give me some designer shoes for having to listen to you talk all day."

When Atobe responds with a one-syllable word directly opposite to "no", Mizuki can't help but grin. Maybe a friendship could be worked out after all.


End file.
